It’s quarter past five in the evening and I was standing at Picadilly Gardens bus station in Manchester. I stood in the crowd, observing what was going on. When I looked again and again it was like someone was writing a book in my mind because the message was so strong and irresistible and I noticed all people around busy piercing their mobile phones both with eyes and their hands. The eyes were gripped on to the messages whilst the fingers gripped into typing back. Messages were floating to and from. Their minds glued on the in coming message, no personal greetings to a person standing by. It’s individualism and the phone. It hit me hard as I saw that nine in ten were on their mobiles.

I wondered where this world was leading us to; where it lacked sense of touch, the voice, which all had been stripped off and replaced by non verbal communication. I saw the ipads, the iphones, the laptops, the tablets and so many serious faces that dwindled over these communication electronic gadgets which lacked the vital ingredient the human touch, the human voice that displays emotions. For the first time I felt like I was seeing aliens who alienate themselves from body to body contact and concentrate more in the world that disentangle them,conveying inauthentic expression of feeling that projects an image they want and building an illusion of their own.

Oh, how I missed the human interaction, the warmly handshake, the face to face illustrations, which is the core of human communication, once it’s rooted,enabling to form a good friendship based on trust, to develop confidence, to motivate and to minimise misunderstandings. How I missed the smiles and the engaging conversation that sweep up instantly, I thought. It was no longer the quality but the quantity of how to become popular, how many friends do I have comparing with my friends and the list is endless. It was authenticity against superficially. Slowly the social media is crippling the art of personal touch, personal greeting over the electronic communication gadgets causing distractions, people not checking on their surroundings as they are completely disconnected.

As I looked again, I saw that people were lost in connection. Social media and social networking diminishes understanding, thoughtfulness , lacks emotional connection, minimises interaction skills hence these are key skills for communication. I thought it was food for thought as the social network lead us into “anti-social behaviour.” How would do you reverse as ninety percent of the population are clouded with the media gadgets all around them? I love an environment where a conversation can crop up.